


worth it

by mildlydiscouraging



Category: Bandom, The 1975 (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bands, Originally Posted Elsewhere, Other, just read it it'll make sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 10:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2424608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlydiscouraging/pseuds/mildlydiscouraging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So yes, Adam was one of those people who was willing to wait until two in the morning outside the stage door just to see a glimpse of his favorite band member. </p><p>Was he a little old for this? Maybe. Was it worth it? Definitely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	worth it

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for my friend shosh, it's basically them/adam, and i'm now posting it here because i wanna have all my stuff in one place so there's that.
> 
> originally posted on tumblr [here](http://photocomfort.co.vu/post/95263662047/).

A Saturday night in Manchester in February and Adam Hann was freezing his fucking ass off. Better yet, he was  _freezing his ass off_ _alone_.

Okay, so George  _had_  stayed behind to wait with him, but while the rest of his mates were all happy to go to the actual concert with him, they eventually abandoned him one by one as the temperature dropped and the clock ticked on.

So yes, Adam was one of those people who was willing to wait until two in the morning outside the stage door just to see a glimpse of his favorite band member.

Was he a little old for this? Maybe.

Was it worth it? Definitely.

As George chattered on in the background, his breath clouding the air, Adam shuffled from foot to foot and pulled his peacoat tighter around him. He pulled his hand out of his coat pocket just long enough to glance at his watch, which told him they’d already been waiting two hours since the concert had ended at ten. Not bad. He’d certainly waited longer, and for bands who weren’t nearly as important as this one.

Fucking Sick, not nearly as hardcore as they sounded, were literally Adam’s favorite band and had been since he first heard of them about a year ago. Back then they were just a small indie rock group out of L.A., one of oh so many, that he’d heard first on the radio way too early in the morning and he had been hooked from the first drum beat.

Needless to say, when they had announced that they’d be making their first tour to England in three months, Adam was very excited. So much so that the rest of his friends had bought tickets to the concert as well just to see what he “would not shut up about, oh my  _god_  Adam, seriously”. Of course they hadn’t waited in line with him for four hours, but they ended up right next to him in the front row and seemed to enjoy it, from what could tell when he could tear his eyes away from the stage to look at them.

Now the concert was over, most of his friends had gone home, and Adam was beginning to come down from his post-concert high. He leaned against the wall of the venue as George continued to ramble.

"So then I said to Matty, ‘You ever think you maybe wear too much black?’ and he’s still got that massive floppy hat on his head and he gives me this look like he’s a puppy and I’d just stolen his favorite toy."

Adam chuckled, knowing both the face he was talking about and where the story went. “And we’re still standing in the middle of the women’s section of the H&M in at five in the morning, two hours before we had to be at rehearsal for graduation, and Matty still couldn’t decide which shade of black to wear  _under his robe_.”

It was a story Adam was more than familiar with, yet he still had to ask, “And then what happened?” through his laughter. George, trying to catch his breath, leaned on Adam’s shoulder as he finally got out, “He didn’t… wear… anything!” before they collapsed against each other in fits of giggles. Too busy laughing at each other and the story, they didn’t hear the click of the stage door being pushed open behind them. “All… those black shirts…” George wheezed, “and he just wore… NOTHING!”

As they finally started breathing normally, they heard the sound of two distinctly different laughs behind them. Straightening up, Adam turned around to see none other than Shoshanna and Nico, the lead singer and bassist of Fucking Sick.

While Adam stood silent in his shock and wonder (and also probably fear, to be honest), George spotted them as well, saying, “Oh, hi there! You’re the girls from the band, right?”

They walked over towards the pair, stepping into the light from the street lamp that confirmed that yup, this was two of the members of Adam’s favorite band ever of all time. Now in the light he could see Shosh (who was totally not his favorite, no, shut up) and their signature green hair, which was partially hidden by the beanie on their head, and Nico, who had her guitar case slung over one shoulder and a ridiculously long scarf wound around her neck.

"Hi," Shosh said, and Adam swore he could hear a chorus of angels accompanying their greeting, "you fans?" They gestured at the smiling George and silent Adam.

"Not really." George answered. They tilted their head in confusion and looked back at Nico, who just shrugged.

"Well," he amended, "I’m not really. I just tagged along because this one," he nudged Adam and brought him out of his daze, "just never shuts up about you guys."

Adam, finally back firmly in the real-world-that-didn’t-really-feel-like-the-real-world-because-this-kind-of-stuff-only-happens-in-dreams, nodded sheepishly and looked over at the street lamp above them. “Yeah, I guess you could say I’m a bit of a fan.”

George looked over his shoulder exaggeratedly before leaning in to stage whisper, “His room is papered in posters of you guys,” and chuckled as Adam stepped deliberately on his foot.

Nico and Shosh both laughed. “So, only a bit of a fan?” Nico questioned jokingly. There was a few minutes of that particular brand of awkward silence where it isn’t really awkward unless someone points it out before Shoshanna turned back to Adam and asked, “So, did you guys enjoy the show?”

Adam nodded, regaining control over his vocal chords. “Yeah, it was amazing. I’ve been waiting a while for you guys to come to our side of the ocean, so I had a lot of time to build up my expectations, and you still managed to exceed them,” he said.

At that, Shosh and Nico laughed, not in a mean way, as he realized what he said and covered his mouth. George looked down and shook his head at his friend’s accidentally voiced obsession.

As he stared at his shoes and questioned all of his life choices, Shosh placed their hand comfortingly on his shoulder.

“No worries, man,” they laughed, “we’ve met fans way crazier than you. I mean, you should’ve seen this one kid that we met a couple months ago in Detroit.” They looked over at Nic, who started nodding and holding in laughter as she recognized where the story was going.

"So this kid, a little younger than us, was waiting outside the door and it was end of October so it was ridiculously cold already…"

Shosh went on to describe how this kid literally had both their and their drummer’s faces tattooed on his chest underneath the band name "in this  _really_  awful font, seriously, it looked like the handwriting of a seven year old” and wanted them to sign his chest so he could get it tattooed over later and memorialize it forever.

The story, or maybe just the way they told it, made the entire thing feel very casual, almost as though they were just a bunch of friends hanging out (ridiculously) late on a weekend. That was definitely a train of thought that Adam had to derail and remind himself that no, they weren’t friends, these were famous people and he was just a kind of creepy over-invested fan.

At that point Nico had said, “So, speaking of funny stories, what were you guys laughing about earlier, when we walked out?” so George was now recounting the well worn tale of what he called “Matty and the Black Parade of So Many Stores” to an audience that for once didn’t already know the ending. As he got to the end and was describing what happened at their particularly  _windy_ outdoor graduation, Adam had come to the conclusion in his mind to at least attempt to not get overly familiar or friendly with them, lest he become too attached and come on creepy.

Throughout George’s entire story, Shoshanna had been glancing over at the spaced out Adam periodically with a look on their face that was a cross between concerned and intrigued. After the story was over and everyone (even Adam, who had already heard it once today, let alone the dozens of times he’s heard it over the years) had stopped laughing, they turned to Adam and asked, “So you’re a fan right? How’d you hear of us all the way over here? I mean, I’m surprised we had enough fans to fill the floor seats, let alone enough to actually be able to play the show.”

Back on a track of conversation he could actually talk about, Adam told them about that last week of finals before he graduated from uni and he was up until two am studying for his music theory exam the next (or at that point, later that) day when he was listening to the campus radio and heard a song from their first EP, Number One Groupie.

Upon hearing the name of the song he’d heard, Shosh burst out laughing.

“Oh my god,” they exclaimed, “that one?! Out of all the songs, it had to be fucking Number One Groupie. Ugh, that song was a train wreck, I have no idea how that didn’t completely trash our careers. That song was terrible, I’m so sorry you had to hear that first.”

"Well, at least this way you know I really like your music," Adam said, "If I’m willing to ignore that and keep listening, you must’ve been worth it."

They all laughed at that before he continued, "No, but seriously, it wasn’t that bad of a song. I mean…".

As everyone (sans George, who just looked pleasantly bemused the whole time) continued to fight over how terrible the song really was, a man walked out the stage door behind them, headed towards the tour bus until he noticed Shoshanna and Nico standing under the streetlamp, at which point he walked over to the group.

"Guys?" he asked. The bandmates turned around to see their tour manager, Tom.

"Oh, Tom!" Nico exclaimed. "Why’re you out here?"

Shosh pulled their phone out of their back pocket to check the time, only to see that they’d been standing out there talking for an hour and a half

“Holy crap, we’ve been out here that long?” They practically shouted as they turned back to Adam and George. “Jeez guys, sorry about this, but I guess we’ve gotta go. We’re headed down to London for our next show tomorrow, so we really oughta get going. Wait, was there anything you wanted us to sign or something?”

George shook his head as Adam reached into his bottomless pockets to pull out a sharpie and his copy of their first album that he bought online way back when and had waited five weeks for it in the mail.

As Nico signed the CD, Shosh said, “It was really cool talking to you guys, it sucks that we’ve gotta leave so soon”.

Nico handed them the CD and permanent marker as she replied, “It’s not really soon though, we’ve been out here for ages apparently.”

"Then I guess what they say is true: time flies when you’re having fun". At that, Shosh handed Adam back the CD and winked. "Well, London calls. Maybe we’ll see you sometime again?"

Adam clutched the CD case in his hands and nodded. “Actually,” he said, “I’ll be at your show tomorrow too. Guess I’ll see you then?”

Nic had already joined Tom and was headed toward the tour bus when Shosh said, “I’ll be counting on it” before waving and joining them, leaving a dazed Adam and still frozen George standing alone under the warm light of the street lamp.

As the bus drove away into the Manchester night, Adam opened the plastic case to see the fresh sharpie signatures on the back of the lyric booklet. On the left side was Nico’s small and loopy writing saying “Nico xoxo”, and just to the right of it was Shoshanna’s name in a familiar spiky yet rounded script that Adam had become so familiar with after spending years coveting other’s signed posters and what not.

Yet, under that signature was something else, written slightly smaller and hard to read in the dim light. He moved closer to the streetlight until he could make out the words “call me” followed by a string of numbers that he could only assume was their phone number.

"Hey, you ready to go?"

Adam snapped shut the case and tried to tamper down the smile threatening to overtake his entire face as he nodded.

"Good," George muttered, "because I am fucking.  _freezing_.”

And with that they walked home, George’s small talk a comforting background noise as Adam kept his hand on the CD in his pocket, already planning what he’d say to them the next day.

**Author's Note:**

> basically this is for my own archiving purposes (you could even say as an archive of my own), but anyways.  
> yeah.
> 
> tumblr @[findyourmonsters](http://photocomfort.co.vu)


End file.
